The first ever convoy of Chinese Muslims going to perform the Hajj pilgrimage left the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region for the holy city of Mecca.
The first plane to leave the region was carrying 297 pilgrims out of a total of 14,000 who plan to embark on the spiritual journey from China this year, World Bulletin reported.
The organization of this year’s Hajj pilgrimage from China was undertaken by both the central government and local governments in cooperation with private travel agencies.
Speaking to the local media, some of the pilgrims expressed their happiness to be part of the convoy, noting that their parents had not been able to perform the pilgrimage because of tight restrictions on religion in the Communist country.
Around half of China’s 20 million Muslims live in Ningxia, where the people identify their ethnic group as Hui.
The following video, produced by Infocus Asia, shows how difficult it was before for Chinese Muslims to perform the Hajj pilgrimage before.
Prior to this year, the Chinese Muslims used to head to Saudi Arabia for Hajj, yet never in official envoys.
“It takes only 5 days to complete. But a lifetime to prepare for,” the commentator said.
